Ch. 8. The speech of Bildad

Bildad passes over in complete silence both Job’s defence of his despairing cry (ch. Job 6:1-13) and his assault upon the cruel behaviour of his friends (ch. Job 6:14-30), and comes directly to the main issue, viz. Job’s plea against God. The first speaker who thinks it necessary to defend the attitude taken up by the three friends towards Job is Eliphaz, who, in his second discourse (ch. 15), speaks of their advices to Job as “the comforts of God and a word gently spoken” (ch. Job 15:11), to which Job retorts, “miserable comforters are all of you” (ch. Job 16:2).

Bildad attaches his speech to what seemed the general drift of Job’s words, particularly to two points where his drift more plainly shewed itself: first, his assertion that he had right on his side against God (ch. Job 6:29), which implied a denial of the rectitude of God in his own case; and second, his assertion that the race of mankind were bound within the chains of a cruel force which bore upon them universally with an iron pressure (ch. Job 7:1 seq., Job 5:17 seq.). In the last point Job went far beyond his own individual instance. To meet these assertions Bildad affirms the rectitude of God, not merely in general but on both its sides, as a discriminating rectitude, which rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.

This double-sided action of the divine rectitude, its discrimination as opposed to Job’s cruel force that bore on mankind as a whole, is the chief point in Bildad’s discourse.

The other point of importance is that he supports his doctrine not as Eliphaz did from revelation and religious feeling, but from the moral traditions of the fathers of humanity and the wisdom of the ancients.

The speech has three short sections:

First, Job 8:1-7. Bildad’s affirmation of the discriminating righteousness of God, one side of which was illustrated in the destruction of Job’s children for their sin, and the other (as all good men hope) will be seen illustrated in the restoration of their father (for God is no respecter of persons) for his righteousness’ sake to a prosperity greatly surpassing what he before enjoyed.

Second, Job 8:8-19. This doctrine, especially that side of it which bears on the destruction of the wicked, is supported from the proverbial Wisdom of the Ancients. The moral maxims of the ancient time are thrown into gorgeous similes drawn from the rank and luxuriant vegetation of the swamps and river brakes of the semi-tropical East. The downfall of the wicked when God turns away from him is as rapid and complete as the sinking and withering of the stately reed when water is withdrawn from it.

Third, Job 8:20-22. Bildad finally repeats his principle on both its sides, drawing from the beneficent side of it the assurance of a happy future for Job.

1–7. The discriminating rectitude of God

2. Before coming to his principle and by way of introducing it Bildad expresses his wonder that Job should allow himself to speak such things as his discourse contained. These things are such things as ch. Job 6:29, Job 7:1-2; Job 7:12-21, and perhaps even ch. Job 6:10. He refers to the general drift of Job’s speech, which appears to him to be an assertion that God was unjust (Job 8:3).

a strong wind] Violent, and empty, cf. ch. Job 15:2, Job 16:3.

3. doth God pervert] Or, will God pervert … will the Almighty, &c.? This is what Bildad means by his reference to these things. Job’s speech put briefly is an assertion that God perverts justice. God is referred to in his character of ruler of the world. By the question Bildad expresses his astonishment and abhorrence of what seems the drift of Job’s language. The words “God” and “Almighty” stand first in the sentence for the sake of emphasis, will God …? and the same word “pervert” is also used in both clauses with an intonation of astonishment.

4. The construction of the English version is possible, which makes the whole of Job 8:4 the supposition or protasis and begins the second member of the sentence with Job 8:5. But more probably Job 8:4 is complete in itself: if thy children have sinned so (or, then) he hath, &c.

cast them away for] Rather lit., he hath sent them away, or, let them go, into the hand of their transgression. The idea is that evil carries its own retribution with it, and that a sinner is destroyed by the very sin which he commits, a common idea in the Book, cf. ch. Job 4:8, Job 15:31; Job 15:35, Job 18:7-8, Job 20:12 seq. Though Bildad puts his reference to the children of Job hypothetically there is great harshness in the allusion, and we may understand how the father would smart under it from his own reference later in the Book to the time when his children were yet alive: “When my boys were about me,” ch. Job 29:5. A wiser and more human-hearted Teacher than Bildad has instructed us from the instances of the affliction of blindness (John 9:2-3) and the accident in the tower of Siloam (Luke 13:4) that calamity is no proof of guilt in those on whom it falls, and that evil may serve in the hand of God wider uses than the chastisement of individuals. This is the very lesson of the Book of Job, though it seems that men in the days of our Lord had not yet learned it. The verse refers back to ch. Job 1:19, and is evidence that the Prologue forms an integral part of the Book.

4–7. In opposition to Job’s impious principle Bildad brings forward his doctrine of the Divine rectitude on both its sides, the one illustrated in the fate of Job’s children (Job 8:4), the other, as he hopes, to be illustrated in the history of Job himself (Job 8:5-7).

5. Bildad saw in the fate of Job’s children not only proof that they had sinned but that their sin was deadly. He saw in Job’s afflictions proof equally decisive that he had sinned, but the fact that he was still spared, however severe his afflictions, gave a different complexion to his sin, and also suggested a different meaning for his afflictions. They were chastisements meant for his good, and Bildad is enabled to hope the best for Job, if he will rightly lay his trials to heart.

wouldest seek unto God betimes] Rather, if thou wilt seek earnestly unto God. Thou is emphatic in antithesis to “thy children,” Job 8:4.

6. if thou wert pure] Or, if thou be pure, cf. subjunctive in ch. Job 11:15.

surely now he would awake] Rather, surely now he will awake. The words, if thou wilt seek, Job 8:5, suggest the right point of view from which to look at the words, if thou be pure, &c. The whole passage refers to the conduct which Bildad hopes for from Job. The meaning, therefore, does not seem to be, If thou be pure, as thou sayest, and as we have supposed thee; but rather, If thou become pure, through penitence, and by letting afflictions work the fruits of righteousness, cf. ch. Job 11:13 seq.

make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous] Or, restore thy righteous habitation, that is, restore the lost prosperity (cf. Joel 2:25) of thy habitation, now become the abode of righteousness. Bildad comes out with his suspicions of Job’s guilt much more explicitly than Eliphaz did; and similarly Zophar, ch. Job 11:13.

7. thy beginning] i. e., thy former estate, before affliction; similarly “latter end” (read: thy latter end shall greatly increase) is said of his future condition of prosperity; see the same use of the words ch. Job 42:12. The verse means that his former estate shall seem small in comparison with the splendour of his renewed prosperity. It is curious that the Author here allows Bildad to utter a prophecy, the literal fulfilment of which, though not through the means suggested by Bildad, he takes care expressly to chronicle.

8. prepare thyself to the search] i. e., give heed to the research, or, to that which their fathers have searched out. By referring to a former age, and then to the fathers of that age or generation, Bildad intimates that his truth was recognised through all antiquity backwards till history loses itself in the beginnings of time.

8–19. The moral wisdom of the ancients

Bildad, having laid down his moral principle, invites Job to reflect that it is a principle resting on the research and the generalized experience of men of generations long past, whose long lives enabled them to weigh and balance and infer from the multitude of cases the general truth. It is no new theory of his or of the short-lived men of to-day, who are but of yesterday and know nothing. These maxims of the ancient world are clothed in rich and gorgeous similes drawn from the luxuriant plant-life of the sultry East.

10. words out of their heart] Words not the result of hasty and superficial generalizing, but of an experience which the lengthened lives of these men had enabled them to pass through, and the principles learned in which had sunk into their heart. The “heart” is in Heb. the deepest part of human nature, whether intellect or feeling. There is an implied condemnation in all this of the new principles which Job was setting forth, what a subsequent speaker calls his “doctrine,” ch. Job 11:4, principles based on nothing but his own single experience and instance.

11. The ancient wisdom itself. This wisdom is plainly not that of the Arabs or Idumeans, but is Egyptian. The rush is most probably the Papyrus, which is said to attain a growth twice the height of a man. The flag is the Nile-reed, or Nile-grass (only here and Genesis 41:2).

12. and not cut down] lit. and not to be cut down (or, plucked, ch. Job 30:4), that is, in its full luxuriance, not ripe nor ready for cutting, and therefore with no trace of withering or decay in it. In this state of full freshness, when water is withdrawn from it, it sinks and collapses, withering sooner than any herb.

13. Application of the simile. When men forget God, and His sustaining grace is withdrawn from them, they sink down suddenly and perish like the luxuriant water-reed.

the hypocrite] This word is difficult to translate, it means rather the godless, or, profane, cf. Jeremiah 23:11; hypocrisy in the ordinary sense is not at all the idea of the term. The verb is rendered in the English Version mostly “defile” or “pollute,” but “profane” would suit most of the passages.

14. shall be cut off] Perhaps rather, goeth in sunder, though the meaning is not quite certain. One would have expected a noun here parallel to “spider’s web” in the second clause, but no efforts to find a noun have been successful. Saadia in his Arabic Translation rendered gossamer, the filmy thread-like substance that floats in the air, or the thread-like shimmer of the air itself when sultry and moist. This is a very suitable sense but is without sufficient support.

a spider’s web] lit. spider’s house, cf. “house” in Job 8:15. The flimsiness of the spider’s house is proverbial in the East. Mohammed compares idolaters to the spider: The likeness of those who take to themselves patrons beside God is as the likeness of the spider who taketh to herself a house; and verily the frailest of houses is the spider’s house, if they did but know, Kor. 29:40. See also Job 27:18.

15. hold it fast] i. e. hold fast by it. The meaning of course is not that he tries to uphold his house, but that he tries to support himself by holding on to it. This is true both of the spider and the man.

16–19. A new figure of a spreading, luxuriant plant, suddenly destroyed, and leaving not a trace of itself behind.

before the sun] This scarcely means openly, in broad day and in the face of the sun, but, under the fostering heat of the sun.

17. seeth the place of stones] This translation can hardly mean that in his high growth he looks down upon the stone heap, or bends over it, but rather that he chooses it, fixes himself upon it. Others prefer the sense: he pierces between the stones, that is, with his roots, or, he pierces the place of stones, the word which ordinarily means to see having it is said in the dialect of the Hauran the sense of cut, or split (Wetzstein in Delitzsch, note, p. 120). This affords a more distinct sense. The luxuriance of the plant and its hold of the soil are graphically described. It is fresh and green under the heat of the sun; its suckers spread out and run over all the garden; its shoots clasp the heap of stones and weave themselves about it; and, finally, its roots thrust themselves down and pierce the stony soil, grasping the heart of the earth.

18. if he destroy him] The subject is God. The words might be rendered, if he be (when he is) destroyed. This is perhaps better, as the plant is spoken of. The point of the verse is not who destroys him, but that he is destroyed, and when destroyed utterly disappears, so that his place says, I never saw thee. In spite of his luxuriance and hold of the soil he is suddenly and wholly swept away and his place denies ever having known him.

19. joy of his way] way may be “fate,” as often, and the words would be ironical; or “way” may be “course of life”—so ends what was to him the joy of his course of life.

shall others grow] Or, do others grow. Who the others are or what quality they are of is not the point, which is that his place is occupied by others as if he had never been. He leaves no trace, no blank, and no memory.

20–22. Finally Bildad repeats his general principle and augurs from the one side of it a happy and brilliant future for Job.

cast away a perfect man] This word “perfect” is the title given to Job by the Author, and acknowledged due to him by God, see on ch. Job 1:1. The phrase, God will not cast off a “perfect” man, becomes almost the text of Job’s reply, cf. ch. Job 9:20-21; Job 10:3.

help the evil doers] lit. hold by the hand of evil-doers, cf. Isaiah 41:13; Isaiah 42:6.

21. till he fill] If this rendering be adopted, the word “till” is used somewhat generally to express what God’s practical rectitude, as described on both its sides Job 8:20, will issue in. Others prefer to read, he will yet fill—making a stop at the end of Job 8:20.

22. In his concluding words Bildad puts himself and his friends right with Job, and desires to put Job right with himself and God. By referring to Job’s haters he intimates that he and his friends are none of them; and by identifying these haters with the wicked (Job 8:22), he lets Job know that he regards him as at heart one who belongs to quite a different class.

The position of Job’s friends cannot be understood at all unless we consider that they assumed Job’s piety at heart, but concluded from his calamities that he had been guilty of some great sins. And as Eliphaz had already brought to bear on Job’s mind the influence of a revelation, the next strongest argument was the consent of mankind. And to some minds, especially in that condition of perplexity and confusion on religious experience in which Job’s was, the general accord of mankind speaks with a more persuasive voice than anything called revelation. Bildad clearly enough perceived the drift of Job’s words in ch. 7; they were to the effect that the government of the world and the supreme Power in it was un-moral. And his reply, that mankind everywhere, and especially in circumstances that gave their judgment weight, had perceived a moral law ruling the universe, was conclusive as a general principle. His error lay in supposing that this was the only principle on which the universe was ruled, and in imagining that this principle operated always in a manner direct and immediate. Hence the principle lost its effectiveness in his hands by being stretched to uses which it did not cover.